The Ringer compares Utah Jazz to NBA champions
Today, Dan Devine of prominent media outlet The Ringer published an article comparing the Utah Jazz to the NBA championship-winning Milwaukee Bucks. It’s a well-written article that should inspire optimism for Jazz fans in Salt Lake City and abroad.
Devine touches on many of the talking points that, as Jazz specialists, we’ve been harping on for months here at the J-Notes. Most notably, he opinions that Rudy Gay at the 5 formations could be an effective counter to the sorts of 5-out lineups that ultimately sunk the Jazz in the Western Conference semi-finals this season.
More broadly, Devine draws a comparison to the Utah Jazz and Milwaukee Bucks. The basis of that comparison is the fact that the Bucks, like the Jazz last season, authored consecutive years in which they led the regular season in wins, only to sputter in the postseason.
Accordingly, the Bucks made adjustments to their game plan that paid dividends in the postseason. Their perennial MVP candidate Giannis Antetokounmpo started functioning as a roll man in pick-and-roll sets more frequently. They switched their drop coverage defensive schemes out for a switch-heavy strategy. The latter plan became particularly viable through the midseason addition of PJ Tucker.
Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder will be hoping that the addition of Rudy Gay can unlock similar strategic variance for his club. Devine makes a compelling case for that possibility, noting that Gay’s most frequent defensive assignments last season included Antetokounmpo, LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Pascal Siakam.
As Devine notes, those are difficult assignments for the 6’4, 225-pound Royce O’Neale. For all of his defensive IQ and general toughness, he’s simply too small to be expected to handle some of the NBA’s more physically imposing forwards on a consistent basis.
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As General Manager Justin Zanik is quoted as having said in Devine’s article, making the leap from good to great is a complicated task in the NBA. Utah Jazz fans hope their squad is able to do exactly that in 2021-22.